First off – before you ask, I am fine. As you read this my foot has healed completely, and we are already beyond the Philippines moving on with our global adventure. However, this is also a story worth telling about the realities of traveling full time – the bad, the good, and the ugly.
Without further ado, we’ll start with…
The Bad – A Motorcycle Accident
While neither Kaitlin or I would call ourselves “expert” motorcycle drivers, we definitely aren’t beginners. We’ve rented bikes several times on this trip, and have both done so many other times in the past. So, we weren’t at all scared when renting a bike from our hotel on Cebu island in the Philippines.
Cebu is best-known (by tourists) as a place for close encounters with aquatic wildlife, which we definitely enjoyed. However, the island is also known for several waterfalls in its interior. Most tourists opt to take a “canyoneering” trip with a local guide to explore the waterfalls – wanting to go at our own pace and save money on fees, we decided to drive to some on our own.
This was a bad idea.
After getting turned away at the first waterfall (you actually can’t even enter this one without a local guide) we drove further down the coast to the next one. There weren’t really any signs for this one, so we were just following google maps. Turns out, Google Maps is good for showing you “yes, there are roads” going to a place, but doesn’t always give the best detail on road quality. We wound up on a road with only two paved tire tracks going up into a mountain for a few kilometers, then we eventually got scared and turned around when the road got too steep.
Making our way back to the main road, we crashed. Going back downhill the road was too wet/moss covered for the bikes brakes to work…when we tried to slow down we just started sliding. While sliding the back tire went out to our left, and we laid the bike down on its right side. The bike slid away from us into a small ditch on the side of the road, while Kaitlin and I slid to a stop on the pavement.
Fortunately, the bike wasn’t banged up too bad – just some deep scratches on the front paneling. We paid about $80 USD to cover the damage, all said and done not too terrible.
All things considered, we also escaped with limited injuries. Despite crashing we actually were trying to be careful on the terrain; only going about 3-5mph at the time of the crash. The area we fell was also fortunate, as there were other steeper sections of road very close by
Kaitlin was riding on the back of the bike, and had some minor scrapes on her elbow and right shoulder. I had some worse scrapes on my right elbow/forearm and knee, but the worst injury was to my right foot.
There was a large gash across the top, a big cut on the big toe, and several smaller scratches near the ankle. The accident happened quickly, but based on my injuries it seems like the bike dragged across my foot after we fell off.
The Ugly – An Infection
Both Kaitlin and I were able to stand up right after the crash – I went over to the bike and turned it off as well. Some local women also came down from their driveway to offer help. We were bleeding, so they mashed up some plants and pressed them against our wounds – this caused some light numbing and got the bleeding to stop. We walked our bike back down the hill until we got back to the better quality road, and went on our way.
We stopped at a local mechanic to re-tighten one of the bike’s rearview mirrors, and reattach the visor of my helmet – total repair cost ~$1USD. When we asked if he could fix the scratches, he said “get a sticker.”
Neither Kaitlin or I are in the medical field, so our next steps were a few things you’re not supposed to do for wound care in a tropical area. First off, we didn’t immediately go to a medical clinic – we just kept going on our way. To go back to my days of high school sports, I felt as if I was “hurt, but not injured” and we could just tough it out. We bought ethyl alcohol to clean the wounds (very painful!) and then went to the next waterfall on our list. This place was also a hot spring – I actually went into the water to clean off my cuts and scrapes.
My foot was swelling slightly at this point, and was definitely hurting the worst out of everything. We did our best to ice it when we could, but kept going about our day to day. Unfortunately, this was the point we found out the contents of our “first aid kit” were severely lacking:
Over the next few days we traveled from Cebu to Bohol, took our day tour to see the Chocolate Hills and tarsiers, explored the area of Panglau on Bohol, and travelled again to the small island of Siquijor. I was bandaging my foot with band-aids and taking Tylenol, thinking the pain would ultimately go away and the swelling would reduce.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t happening. The first morning of our stay in Siquijor our hosts asked if I had medicine for my foot (we did not), and we decided to get some advice from our ER Nurse friend back home. Big shout-out and thank you to Tom for getting us to take this seriously – upon receiving the picture below he told us that if I walked into his ER there was a >75% chance I’d be admitted to the hospital, and he could tell my foot was infected.
Content warning, gross foot injury. Click past the puppy below at your own risk:
So there we were, on this tiny island in the Philippines –
– with an infected open wound. Now what?
The Unbelievably Good Luck of Getting Treatment
Of course, we immediately pivoted to start thinking of treatment: How to get antibiotics? Should we go to a clinic? A hospital? A hospital on a bigger island? Admittedly, some level of panic was setting in.
Then, we experienced an almost unbelievable stroke of good luck. Kaitlin went to ask the front desk of our hotel for advice/guidance on what to do, and it turned out that (A) the owner of the hotel was a Filipino-American retired nurse, and (B) a retired Anesthesiologist from America lived next door to the hotel. Very generously, both of these people dropped everything on a whim to offer us assistance.
Both the doctor and nurse came to our hotel room to inspect the injury right away. On the first day they brought a first-aid kit, debrided the wound and dressed it properly with iodine, antibiotic cream and gauze wrapping. They also went into the local pharmacies to purchase the correct dosages of the correct antibiotics that I’d need to take, as well as additional bandages/wrappings to change the dressing and probiotics (to combat side-effects of the antibiotics).
Seeing I was wearing slides (which covered and rubbed agains the wound), the doctor even gave me the flip flops off his feet!
We spent the next few days not doing much – the staff at the hotel was very sympathetic, and brought food to our room from the lobby/restaurant so I didn’t even need to walk anywhere. Our time consisted of reading, browsing the internet, and enjoying this view:
In addition to not walking, I was also supposed to keep my foot dry during this time. Fortunately the shower setup still allowed me to take one:
This infection could have thrown a serious wrench into our travel plans – I could have easily required hospitalization and/or IV antibiotics, or worse the wound could have become septic and life-threatening. Ultimately, though, we made it through due to some strong encouragement/advice to seek help immediately from our friend Tom, the incredible luck of being exactly where we were when we decided to seek medical care, and the extreme generosity and good care of the doctor and nurse who treated me.
Ultimately we only ended up spending ~2,000 pesos ($36 USD) for treatment – we spent more to cover the bike scratches! We also spent the whole of our time in Siquijor at the hotel, so unfortunately didn’t get to explore the island. Our next destination was Manila – we also spent this time in the hotel so I could continue recuperating. Not ideal of course, but considering how bad things could have become, we were very lucky. By the time we arrived in Korea, I was back to 100% and ready to continue the adventure.
It goes without saying that we extremely highly recommend Lazi Beach Club Resort in Siquijor if you’re ever in the Philippines – beautiful beach, great food, and amazing people!
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